by JOHN YORVIK
“Like in the army?”
“You could say that. If it wasn’t for the Chessington Boxing Club, Jack Lewis would have been in and out of prison his whole life.”
“So, can you shed any light on his death?”
McCormick’s hand shook spilling his tea into the saucer he was holding. It looked like anger at the question rather than fear of what I was getting at. Finally he composed himself and addressed the question.
“I really would rather not go into it. It isn’t a very happy story to associate with Chessington. There are plenty of other boxers we could talk about.”
“Yes, but if you’ll bear with me, Jack Lewis was very successful and his story will add colour. It will be of great interest to our readers. And draw more attention to the good work the Chessington Club does for the community. It’s a balancing act.”
McCormick looked thoughtful, like he was weighing up the pros and cons.
“Is it true there was a gangland connection to his death?” I probed.
“Why are you so interested in Jack Lewis?” he said with disgust. “I think you are here under false pretences, Mr Lishman. And there’s a name for that. It’s called ambush journalism.”
“I must declare an interest, Mr McCormick. I went to school with Jack Lewis’s son. Nothing untoward in my asking...”
McCormick slammed down his cup onto the tray. “This interview’s over,” he shouted. “Now. Would you please leave.”
And with that he got up and went to the intercom and spoke into it. A minute later the porter was at the door to escort us from the premises. We got into the lift together. I ushered Dani behind me and stood watching the porter who looked like he was about to attack me. Dani lifted her camera and snapped his photo over my shoulder. I turned to glance at her and she was smiling. She was enjoying this. Sometimes I felt like I didn’t know her at all.
* * *
It was one o’clock. We were back in the basement of the women’s refuge in Hackney. I was researching the two charities involved with Chessington Boxing Club on the internet when Dani began pegging up a new batch of photos. I stopped what I was doing and went over to have a look. From the ones taken of the photos in McCormick’s snooker room, there were two of Jack Lewis. One was annotated: ‘Jack Lewis sparring with Sim Fratelli, 1964’.
The other showed Jack Lewis holding an award belt. To his right was Sam McCormick. To his left was a man in a Harris Tweed overcoat, with hair slicked back and a slightly forced smile on his face.
“Lishman,” Dani called over from the other end of the washing line, “come and have a look at this”.
I went over to where Dani had pegged up the last photo.
“Don’t you recognise who that is?” said Dani.
I looked at a black and white photo of a stocky youth with dark hair having his gloves laced up by someone. He was side on to the camera. In the background were a group of people dressed up in tuxedos and evening gowns, no doubt VIPs there to watch the fight.
“No, never seen him before in my life.”
“It’s Tommy Burns. From AmizFire,” Dani said triumphantly. “You remember, the man with the bad aura.”
“I can’t see it, Dani. It’s just some guy.”
“Take it from me. I study faces for a living.”
“We’ll have to get that verified. It was almost forty years ago.”
“No need.”
“If that’s true, Dani. There are dozens of connections here, but I fail to see what it all means. Chessington is connected to AmizFire via Tommy Burns. Natasha Rok worked at AmizFire and was connected to Marty. Jack Lewis, Marty’s father, was at the same boxing club as Tommy Burns at the same time. Natasha Rok was Polish and you have the Polish guys who attacked Marty and me at Old Street and the ones who chased me through Euston station.”
“Lishman to Marty Stewart. Lishman to Natasha Rok. Lishman to Dani. Lishman and Dani to Free Press. Free Press to AmizFire. Everyone and everything is connected.”
“True. So, we have to find an approach that avoids the usual pitfalls of most 21st century amateur investigators.”
“What are the pitfalls?” said Dani.
“Well, there are three approaches. First, you have Conspiracy Theorists who slavishly see conspiracy in everything. Finding links between all the key players of a world event or assassination in a way which throws the official story into doubt: A went to school with B, who was at university with C, who was A’s third cousin, and so on. Conspiracy Theorists may be right some of the time, but it’s the times they are wrong that destroys their credibility. And credibility is cultural capital. Serious investigators, who diligently construct their cases on solid foundations, can be lumped in with Conspiracy Theorists if they come to the same conclusion that A and B and C are co-conspirators.
“After Conspiracy Theorists, you have Coincidence Theorists, who routinely refute all of the links the Conspiracy Theorists have made by claiming that bizarre coincidences happen all the time.”
“So that’s me then,” said Dani.
“Right. Finally you have the smuggest of them all, the Incompetence Theorists, who reject both the Conspiracy and the Coincidence Theorists by pointing to the inadequacies of most civil servants, private security firms and the like and extrapolating that the world is badly run even at the highest levels of society. Their claim is that most so-called conspiracies are just an attempt to cover up a botched job. You see, Coincidence, Conspiracy and Incompetence Theorists all tend to switch off their discernment and hold to their world view. Real investigators may have hunches, instincts and theories, but they will use them to direct their research and only make pronouncements based on credible evidence.”
“So what’s our approach?”
“Bloodhound.”
“Meaning?”
“We follow our leads. Doggedly.” I put a cigarette between my lips and lit it.
Dani laughed and walked back over to the tray of photos and started pegging more of them up to dry.
“I’ll see if I can find Sim Fratelli. We know for a fact that he knew Jack Lewis.”
“Here’s another one of Tommy Burns,” she shouted over.
I went over to see. This time there was a young boxer receiving a cup from a man in a suit. Drinking champagne in the background you could see the man that Dani thought was Tommy Burns in conversation with the unnamed man in the Jack Lewis photo.
“If Tommy Burns is involved, I doubt he’ll want to talk. We have to get as much on him as we can before we approach him. Wait a minute. That woman just behind Burns, that’s Lillian Stewart. That’s Marty’s mother.”
“Another coincidence?” said Dani.
“I think I need another one of these already,” I said, holding up the cigarette I’d just lit.
* * *
I got off at Bethnal Green station and walked up the street perpendicular to Bethnal Green Road. There was a line of men selling cheap cigarettes outside a supermarket. I bought four packs for ten pounds. The writing on the packet looked like Cyrillic script. I couldn’t find a country of origin, but I guessed they were Russian or thereabouts judging by the look and accent of the men. There was an old woman wearing a red headscarf sitting on a blanket against the wall next to the supermarket. By her side, displayed on the blanket, were ten Zippo lighters laid out in a row.
I got down on my haunches to take a look at them.
“How much?” I asked, pointing at the largest silver Zippo.
She held up eight fingers.
I picked it up, flicked it open and pushed the flint wheel down. A wide yellow flame danced above my thumb. As I watched the flame the woman grabbed me by the wrist. Taking the Zippo out of my hand, and turning my hand with palm upwards, she began tracing out the lines. I sat down beside her while she tried to explain what she could see.
“Line of heart... Here, line of life. Here,” she said, struggling to find the English words, pointing to a line running vertically up from my wrist, “is line of fate.”
“Line of fate, good?” I asked.
“Here,” she said, pointing to a small triangle made of creases in my skin near my wrist. “This is island. Means great secret. Not good. And line of health not good. Smoking,” she said, smiling, and she returned the Zippo to my hand. I fished out a ten-pound note from my wallet and placed it in her hand.
“Drinking, too?” she asked and broke into another broad grin, showing her rack of broken front teeth clinging on to light-pink gums.
“Drinking, too,” I admitted, as I began walking away.
“Someone you know is liar,” she shouted before I was out of earshot.
I stood on the corner, one hundred yards from the street vendors, and opened a packet of cigarettes. I pulled one out and lit it with my new Zippo. I exhaled a lungful of smoke and thought about what the fortune teller had said. Out of the four or five times I’d had my palm read, that was certainly the most miserable one I’d ever had: a great mystery that wasn’t good, health problems from smoking and drinking and someone I knew was a liar. She should try telling me something I didn’t know already. Chances were that she hadn’t divined the information from my palm, but read it in the expression on my face, a much more reliable way of cold reading.
I stamped the cigarette out in the gutter and walked, carefully preparing my cover story for the next ‘interview’. Half a mile up the road, there was a redbrick building on the corner with grand steps leading from the street to its entrance. It looked very much like a Victorian school building with ornamental iron work decorating its guttering and a large lightning rod prominent on its roof. Above the door, there was a metal sign, on which you could barely read the words ‘Chessington Club’ painted in faded and flecked white.
I walked through the entrance hall without seeing anyone, so I went through to the training area. There was a pervasive smell of sweat and deep heat and the noise of pounding gloves hitting flesh or leather. I watched one trainer coaching two teenagers in a ring.
“Combo, Otto. Keep ‘em high. Combo. Keep ‘em up.”
Near the water fountain was a wall full of photos and award belts. I was studying one of the many photos when the trainer broke off from the fight and told the boys to have a rest. He hurried over to me.
“Can I help you? You got permission to be here?” he asked in quick succession. He was a well-built man in his early forties. His closely cropped blond hair was beginning to grey at the temples. I handed him the photo I’d taken out of my pocket. He studied it as I explained.
“I’m a journalist. I’m looking for someone. Sim Fratelli. He used to...”
“I know who Sim Fratelli is,” he said, his tone softening as he handed back the photo. “A legend in his day, he was. You might want to check in the bars round Bethnal Green if you’re looking for Sim. He likes to talk after a drink or two.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, son. Now I’m sorry, but we don’t let non-members in here unaccompanied.”
“I understand. Tell me something,” I said, nodding over to the two teenagers, one of whom he’d called Otto. “Do you get a lot of Polish in here?”
“We get all kinds in. Polish, Russian, Indian, African, local.”
“Which do you get most of? Polish? Russian?”
“Yes, there’s been a big Polish community round these parts since World War Two. They’re Londoners now like us. A lot of their families are coming over now too. We get young Poles, looking for work, can’t speak much English, through boxing they become part of the community. It’s international. Now, if you’ll excuse me. Them two’ll be getting cold.” He stuck out a guiding palm and ushered me towards the door.
“Thanks,” I said, scribbling down what he’d said in a spiral notebook. “I may quote you on that one day, what’s your name?”
“Steven Hardy.”
As I walked out, a guy coming in, in training gear with a sports bag, stopped and stared at me. I slowed and looked at him. It took me a few moments to place him. Last time I’d seen him, he’d been on the floor of an Old Street pub, cursing me in Polish: “Zabeej”. It was Bomberjacket. I shrugged at him as if I didn’t recognise him. Then I left the gym and headed towards the nearest pub to see if I could find a local boxing legend turned alcoholic.
* * *
I was standing at another bar watching TV in another pub in Bethnal Green. I wanted to speak to the barman, but he’d just got a delivery of Guinness barrels and was rolling them through the bar to the cellar door, then pushing a button to lower them down below where someone was waiting to unload them. When he’d finished, he came over to me.
“What can I do you for?”
“Have you seen Sim Fratelli?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I do.”
“What do you want him for?”
“I’m writing a book about the Chessington Club. Proceeds will go to charity.”
I wrote my new mobile number on a beer mat and passed it to the barman.
“If you see him, there’s a few drinks in it for him. Tell him to call me.”
“Will do.”
Just as I was thinking about leaving, Marty’s face came on the TV. He’d been spotted fell walking in the Lake District. I ordered a pint of Guinness and sat down to watch the report. Three holidaymakers caught in a thunderstorm on the top of Coniston Old Man consulted a fourth walker, who led them down an old path down the side of the mountain to safety. On returning to the hotel and reading a newspaper, one of them recognised the man as the Pentonville Strangler. They all said he had been very pleasant and helpful, but thought they’d had a close shave.
I lit a cigarette. Smoke rose towards the tobacco-stained ceiling. I had the feeling that you got nothing for free round here and thought about trying to slip the barman twenty pounds when he said:
“Still looking for Sim Fratelli, are you?”
“Yes.”
“He’s over in that corner.”
Sure enough over in the corner was a giant of a man, early sixties, forearms covered in tattoos with the battered face of a time-served alcoholic boxer.
“What can I get you, Mr Fratelli?”
“Whisky and water,” he said in a gravelly voice.
“Double whisky and water for him and a beer for me,” and I laid the twenty down for the barman and told him to keep the change.
I took the drinks and sat down opposite Sim Fratelli and introduced myself. I took out three of the photos Dani had developed the night before and showed him the first one. I offered him a cigarette and lit it with my Zippo. Sim took a long drag and then downed half of the whisky. He looked like a man that needed alcohol to stay alive.
“Where did you get that?” he said. It was the photo of Sim sparring with Jack Lewis.
“I came across it at the house of a journalist. He let me take copies. That’s you and Jack Lewis in 1966,” I said, filling in the silence. Sim said nothing but downed the rest of the whisky. I turned to the barman and signalled that he bring over the bottle. I found another twenty in my pocket and held it up for the barman, who snatched it away.
“Were you and Jack good friends?”
“I’ve had a lot of good friends. Not much to show for it now.”
I could see a yellowing around his pupils. The tell-tale signs of liver disease. He was a man on his way out, but one, I imagined, that endured each day with the same hard-as-nails expression on his face as he was showing me now. And contrary to what I’d been told at the Chessington Club, I was guessing if Sim didn’t want to talk about Jack Lewis, no amount of alcoholic persuasion and journalistic grooming on my part was going to win him over.
“Are you bitter about something, Sim? Did things not work out for you?”
He laughed. “Bitter? I’m an alcoholic, but every turn I took to get here was honourable. I’d do the same if I had to live it over. Only, it might turn out different then, ‘cos that’s the nature of fate.”
“Fickle.”
“You
got it. Fickle,” he said, pouring himself another whisky, and staring into the bottom glass as he swilled the golden liquid round, while repeating the word ‘fickle’.
“Jack Lewis might say the same had he lived.”
Sim didn’t answer, just sipped at the whisky, his yellowed eyes watching me as I talked.
In need of inspiration, I pulled out the packet of cigarettes and offered Sim another one, which he took, and then put one between my lips. I took out the Zippo.
“Expensive lighter,” said Sim.
I nodded and flicked it open to light his cigarette.
“I guess you’re doing well for yourself. No bitter aftertaste.”
“Well,” I said, inhaling, “I do a lot of dishonourable things. Strangely, everything keeps getting better.” Holding up my glass, I said, “This helps with the aftertaste.”
I took the Zippo and placed it on Sim’s side of the table. “Here, you have it. Have my symbol of prosperity. May it bring you luck.”
Sim lowered his chin and laughed gently to himself, seemingly mesmerised by the whisky as he swilled it round in his glass.
I got up, went to the bar and found a newspaper. I sat back down opposite Sim and drank the rest of my beer. I pointed to the front page story about the Pentonville Strangler.
“I’m going to give you something else, Sim, but I want something back in return. I’m going to tell you the truth about the Pentonville Strangler, who according to this newspaper is Marty Stewart, Jack Lewis’s son.”
Sim was taken aback. He looked at the article, checking the name, and then looked at the photo. I topped up Sim’s glass then tried to tell Sim as much as I knew about Marty’s early life. I explained what it was like growing up with Marty, how he was a born fighter who always stood his ground when danger came calling and how he’d got mixed up in the Pentonville murders while looking for his father, Jack Lewis, but that I thought he’d been set up and I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
When I’d finished talking, Sim looked genuinely moved, like he was struggling to take it all in.